Same girl different dress. Not worth trading my 3GS in for, sell the stock now the unit numbers will disappoint through the end of the year.

If you're still using your 3GS and haven't actually used a 4 let alone and obviously not the 4S you have no idea what you are missing out on. The IP4 experience is far superior to the 3GS in every way.

turtles all the way up and turtles all the way down... infinite context means infinite possibility

Well, realistically, 90+% of the people complaining are Apple haters and fandroids who were just waiting for AI to post the article so they could start their nonsensical trash-talk. The rest criticizing the 4S don't really understand what they are talking about; as pointed out numerous times in this thread, everything is new but the case and screen, and those are both still the best available by a long shot.

Yeah, I read the coverage and thought: Apple took a very successful product and made it better without raising the price, then lowered the price on last year's models to compete on the low end. How is this a failure? Most fandroids are complaining about the same things they complained about before: lack of 4G speed, same antenna, no dual core CPU, no voice command, clunky notifications, lack of an 8 megapixel camera. Oh wait, never mind. They're just complaining it looks like the 4 and is called 4S instead of 5.

Yup and America is still Apple's largest and if you are buying out of contract how tempted are you to spend nearly $1,000/ year on a new phone even if you aren't tied to a contract? If you're ok with that you do what I do and have two iPhone plans and upgrade one phone every other year. I'm pretty sure I am as well as those who would buy a new phone out of contract EVERY year are few and far between.

Two major problems with that argument

1) America is not the majority of iPhone sales
2) the market isn't mature so it is not about getting the upgraders from two years ago but new users.

I have a 3gs and will wait for the iPhone 5. Disappointed with this update. After 16 months there should have been more.

Here's what the iPhone 5 will have, plus more. It will pass the competition, not just catch up to it.
Faster processor than the 4s has.
1 gig of ram or more. The 4s only has 512, same as the 4.
Much better battery life.
LTE
4K video
Different design with bigger screen
Better camera
Apple's own GPS that will do turn by turn and more
The screen on the 4 and 4s is nice but the 5 will make a much bigger leap.

It's worth waiting for it. I can't afford to get locked into another 2 years for the minor upgrades the 4s has.

Are you kidding me? The shape of the phone is not 'game changing innovation', and that is unfortunately what everyone has fixated upon: the form factor.

Siri and iCloud are game changers - it's really sad how few people have the capacity to grasp that.

Simply amazing that on an Apple forum I had to read to post #67 before someone states the obvious?!

This update is very much an update to pave the way for Siri and iCloud but it seems that only a few select people have been able to grasp this! Keeping this in the same enclosure with the same screen is genious from a logistic and manufacturing perspective since they are already making millions of these components a month as we speek. Margins on these things are going to go through the roof! It sure is a great time to be a shareholder

Siri seems simply amazing! Very interesteing to see if this tech is easyly adapted to minority languages like by own native tounge, Swedish. If not I will have to speak English to Siri. Not a problem since I need the practice anyway

Both these iphones had speed upgrade. But in 3gs you could actually "fell the difference" - tons of new improved games and apps.
But this dual core cpu is worthless.

That is BS. All one has to do is look at the performance differences between iPhone 4 and iPad 2. The new processor should go a long way to making use of the 4S more fluid and responsive. That without even bringing games into the equation.

Quote:

For more than a year of ip4 run we saw only few games/apps, which could show us "magic" of a4 cpu. a5 maybe good for infinity blade 2, but this is a) the only game for next six-seven moths which will use full potential of dualcore b) very stupid and boring game. I've bought it once to see graphics, but now I don't need some minor shadow/light improvements.

There is more to the world than iPhone games. Even then you are simply wrong.

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There is no possibility to use these speed on iphone. Such speed requires bigger screen and better inputs (aka mouse or keyboard).

Non-sense! Even things like complex PDFs will be rendered faster and be easier to manipulate.

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Antenna? I really dont want to disappoint anyone, but 90% of speed depends on your carrier, network load and other factors. You could attach satellite dish to iphone, but you will still be in limits of average (NOT THEORETICAL) speed.

I think you are confused, the speed increase is due to supporting new transfer protocols.

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The only real improvement - is camera, but still smartphone is not a camera even with 10Mp

I won't jump to conclusions here but modern cell phones out perform many of the old film cameras from the past. Considering the quality of the original iPhone 4's camera I suspect this one will indeed be even better. Compared to the days of the disc camera and cameras based on 110 film iPhone is a high performance camera.

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Voice-control-thing is funny, but in real life nothing more than "Oh, look what my iphone can do"

That is why this presentation is sad

It is only sad because you close your eyes and refuse to value any of the new features in iOS 5. You also don't want to recognize that the hardware is all new. Tear downs of this phone should be very interesting.

It's not just a good phone. It's the all-around best phone on the market. A lot of people need the iPhone to out-spec Android phones because that's generally the way nerds talk and value things. So, LTE, Wimax service is a key talking point even though it is not available to most of the people in the USA and not available to the vast majority of the people around the world. Apple will get here with this. If people can't wait, they should switch to an LTE/Wimax phone now. Maybe Apple will convince them the next go around.

A flagship phone in 2011 without LTE or WiMAX capacity is BS!!!
2 years of contract to get 3G until end of 2013 is not worthy.
I live in south Florida and just got a Sprint and the WiMAX signal is perfect...

Yes their will be differences in common tasks because the software is also changing to adjust to the faster hardware. Hardware is always the limiting factor of software.

Faster hardware enables common things like switching from watching an HD movie to another task and switching back smoothly without pauses and jitters.

Web languages such as javascript and CSS are being given more complicated tasks that will require power. You can see clear differences in rendering and playback of web animations between the 3GS and the 4.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lionelhuts

I'm not denying that the A5 is faster. I'm an electrical engineer so I can definitely appreciate the technical differences. However, the business part of me still has to ask about the change in experience for the typical user. In terms of the tasks that most people will do on their phone, will they really notice a difference?

Sure, games (for instance) may run better, but is that enough? Honestly, I use my iPhone for running Safari, Email, Music, Phone, and maybe a few simple games. At a certain point, the additional power does not become useful.

I am dissapointed because I wanted to swtich from Android after getting an iPad and loving it. But the screen is too small for my eyes and I do not want to wait another two years to get LTE. So I will get my iOS fix from my iPad and probably get an LTE Android phone sometime this fall which I will tether to my iPad.

But that is me. It is not the right phone for me. So I am not going to buy it. For someone else it might be the perfect phone because the screen is big enough for them and they don't need LTE (I am not switching from Verizon to AT&T).

The iPhone 4 design is CLASSIC. Look at all the imitators. At just over 1 year old, it's design is too early to replace. Apple did just what I thought they would do for this iteration...up the hardware specs, and a major OS upgrade. Next year when the newly designed iPhone 5 comes out, iOS 6 won't be as compelling but people will want the new iPhone 5 and that will drive sales. I think this will be their release cycle going foward. I don't think they would achieve their ROI, if they released a major OS upgrade AND major product re-design each year.

you got it 100% right.. the design cycle has become clear. Apple does not like to change industrial design often. once a year industrial redsign would be too often and too low ROI.

"Building for the future?! They should be running around reacting to the present!" -John Moltz

Also they probably wanted to produce an iPhone 5 this year. Otherwise why wait? This is a cockup not a strategic move.

50% of tweets could mean anything and most likely means nothing - self-selected, smartphone obsessed and admittedly non-techie, which may or may not mean non-informed.

Stock went down as it ALWAYS does after a keynote, and bounced most of the way back already maybe because the market's ultra-short-term gyrations mean almost nothing - and if you do read FT you would know that. And a month from now, when sales are documented, AAPL will be setting records, again.

As informed writers here are pointing out: this release not intended to impress existing iP4 owners (at least in the U.S.), as they are locked into contracts anyway and can't upgrade until next summer.

Yup and America is still Apple's largest and if you are buying out of contract how tempted are you to spend nearly $1,000/ year on a new phone even if you aren't tied to a contract? If you're ok with that you do what I do and have two iPhone plans and upgrade one phone every other year. I'm pretty sure I am as well as those who would buy a new phone out of contract EVERY year are few and far between.

where did you get the info that Apple sells so much more iPhones in USA? I do differently I have one unlocked iPhone and choose the carrier, whenever I am in the world and I upgrade yearly if the new version justifies it, and this damp squib of 4S certainly doesn't. The cost of the phone is a lot less than 1,000 bucks, unless you guys are being ripped off twice over.

Proof of what? It seems significantly less units than the iPhone and uses cheaper components than the iPhone as noted by the displays, bother 960x680 Retina Displays, but the iPhone 4 is and IPS panel and the iPod Touch is a TN panel. That should be a red flag when comparing the two.

That means they would A) might be able to support them in the Touch over the iPhone if production was still low, 2) use slower and/or less power efficient chips because it's not a flagship device and a phone, a lifeline device, and 3) they might be able to get away with considerably worse data retention levels compared to what they offer in the iPhone line. Those are just the most common reasons that NAND might not be an ideal option despite having a single good spec about capacity.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

I always enjoy reading the complaints around the Net and watching how Wall St punishes Apple for not giving them everything they wanted after every presentation by Apple and then I wonder why Apple never hires these specialists...

If I didn't have an iP4 on a contract until sometime next year as well as an iPad with a contract and a pocket wifi with a contract, I would update now. As it is, I will hold off until two of those contracts end.

Siri is seriously interesting, and the camera looks awesome. Form factor: don't have to spend money on new cases, docks, etc. That is great as it does add up each upgrade.

Your = the possessive of you, as in, "Your name is Tom, right?" or "What is your name?"

You're = a contraction of YOU + ARE as in, "You are right" --> "You're right."

The one thing I question with people who want larger screens. Is the understanding that a larger screen also needs a higher resolution. Otherwise you really getting fuzzier pictures and text on a larger screen.

As far as LTE. I question if people even know if LTE is available in their area, do they know the realistic speeds that are available, and is the reduced battery life something you can live with.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gwlaw99

I am dissapointed because I wanted to swtich from Android after getting an iPad and loving it. But the screen is too small for my eyes and I do not want to wait another two years to get LTE. So I will get my iOS fix from my iPad and probably get an LTE Android phone sometime this fall which I will tether to my iPad. .

Well, we'll see. Good points (1st pgrph). But seriously, your dad? Is he multitasking photo-editing and video-editing software? People I know who use iPad2 professionally say the difference between it and iPad1 was like the difference between a tool and a toy. I'm really only guessing how a dramatic increase in iP4S processor capacity will affect the user experience, but it sounds impressive enough to assume that it will allow the device to do things we haven't even thought of doing with a smartphone before - just like we had never thought of half the things the phones we have now can do.

Well he's the only person I know that has used both.

I obviously cannot speak for professional use. I would argue though that most people who buy an iPad are more like my dad than like the professionals you describe.

Really? I don't recall them saying that specs don't matter. What they did say was that their competitors are making a mistake by focusing ONLY on specs rather than the entire experience. To me, the entire experience includes the design, performance and ecosystem. Again to me, the design of the iPhone 4 is still better then the designs of the competition, but that's completely subjective. They nailed the design with the iPhone 4 and now they are upping the performance to imrpove the experience. Nothing wrong with that.

I have a 3gs and will wait for the iPhone 5. Disappointed with this update. After 16 months there should have been more.

You are getting an entirely new OS riding on entirely new hardware

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Here's what the iPhone 5 will have, plus more. It will pass the competition, not just catch up to it.
Faster processor than the 4s has.
1 gig of ram or more. The 4s only has 512, same as the 4.

I was actually hoping for more RAM so on this we agree. As to the processor it is currently state of the art that nobody else can touch. So your complaint isn't valid.

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Much better battery life.
LTE

You can't currently have both of those in an iPhone sized machine.

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4K video
Different design with bigger screen

4K video, you must be jerking chains right now. That won't be possible anytime soon. As for the bigger screen I'd like to see that also. However a bigger screen doesn't need a significantly different design.

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Better camera

Nice! I suppose you consider the current one chopped liver.

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Apple's own GPS that will do turn by turn and more
The screen on the 4 and 4s is nice but the 5 will make a much bigger leap.

It's worth waiting for it. I can't afford to get locked into another 2 years for the minor upgrades the 4s has.

It will be a very long wait.

Quote:

Very disappointing Apple. A classy MS move here.

Not at all, if you are still on the 3GS you don't have a clue as to what is going on here!!!

If I was you (obviously am not) I'd hold onto the iP4 another year. This is a great update, but not that radically different from the 4 especially since most of everything is an OS upgrade not hardware. I'm on a 3GS so for me this would be a major upgrade for hardware and OS... my decision thinking starts... now!

I am a 3GS user as well, and the one feature that would have allowed me to upgrade is not there, namely HSPA+ compatibility. I live in a rural area with no DSL, cable, etc. We just got "4G" with HSPA+, and I would have been using a new model to tether my PC. I have a Shockwave for my laptop, but wanted the new phone for my PC. The fact that they decided to stay with HSDPA (which AT&T will not be upgrading according to their management) was a mistake on Apple's part for me. Oh well, they'll sell millions to everyone else, and I'll continue using my 3GS. All of this is my own opinion, and not meant as an attack on anyone or Apple. I have no desire for any Android device, so I hope my 3GS holds out. I know that there were probably technical reasons behind it, but I am disappointed. Of course next year, the iPhone 5 will come out with LTE, and I will be left hanging again since it will be 10 years before we see LTE (heck, we just got 3G service 4 months ago!).

I am heavily invested in Apple products, but is clear as avid user Apple is falling way behind in the phone world... So all Apple did today is fix the marginal stuff iPhone 4... Look at Apple own spec comparison chart on the web... It is barely a speed bump... The distortion field does not work anymore...

I don't know what to say -- I've owned hundreds of Apple products over 33 years (starting with an Apple ][), and can count on the fingers of one hand the critical failures requiring replacement...

Maybe you're just unlucky:

...either that -- or stop taking your computer gear SCUBA diving

"Swift generally gets you to the right way much quicker." - auxio -

"The perfect [birth]day -- A little playtime, a good poop, and a long nap." - Tomato Greeting Cards -

Personally, I love the iPhone 4 form factor. For me, the faster processor, faster camera, and Siri had me ready to pre- order come Friday.

Then it became clear that Siri isn't going to be available in Canada. What the heck? I could see some features not working, like weather or restaurants. But what's regional about setting an alarm, or reading a text message?

This is my disappointment. I'm not going to pay full price for a regionally crippled product.